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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24153610">The Scrimshander’s Widow; or, Her Fine Strong Arms</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/grinningAphotic/pseuds/grinningAphotic'>grinningAphotic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fairy Tales &amp; Related Fandoms, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Captivity, Character Death, Fairy Tale Elements, Feminist Themes, Gen, Macabre, Magic, genre typical violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:47:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24153610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/grinningAphotic/pseuds/grinningAphotic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Pray tell, have you heard this one?</p><p>It's the story of a young widow, with ever more work to do than she can manage. What lengths would you go for an extra set of hands? And what cost would be too dear? Listen well and you may discover what force of will that is required to make a pair of fine strong arms your own...</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>A traditional English fairy tale</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Scrimshander’s Widow; or, Her Fine Strong Arms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There once was a scrimshander's wife who found herself a widow at a young age. She was clever and she was fair, and she was a fine hand at scrimshaw work. A scrimshander is a sort of engraver, by the by, one who works with bones from the sea. Mind, this all happened years ago and far to the north.</p><p>Still, despite her many talents, the young widow was impoverished. She had an infant son to care for all on her own and her lot in life was hard. Her village supported her as best they could, but each new day left her slightly more behind, for there was ever more work to do than a single set of hands could provide.</p><p>By days and by months the young mother grew desperate, until one morning she took her fate into her own hands, gathered up what scant valuables she owned, and entrusted her son to the care of a friend in the village. Restlessly, she waited for first light and soon had ventured forth to seek out the strange old woman who lived on the moor. The older folks in her village had been able to tell her the way, which was marked by standing cairn stones, but she'd been warned that the way was long and it was much better ridden than walked, but of course she was not so lucky. If she must walk then, they cautioned her, she must not stray too far from her route nor to tarry too long on the path, for the moor was unforgiving to those who lost their way and got stranded out after dark. Out like that, wandering lost, she'd be like as not to stumble into some unseen marsh and never be heard from again.</p><p>The way was indeed hard and the heath was desolate, but she moved with purpose from cairn stone to cairn stone and stuck always to the safe path that they promised. The markers were each far distant and every pile of rocks she reached only then revealed the next one in the chain, far off and faint on the horizon. In such a way she made it to the old hermit's hut, arriving in time with the setting sun. The old sage greeted her warmly, anticipating news of the world, and bid her accept some hospitality and to stay the night.</p><p>They supped and then talked until late and eventually the young widow laid out her purpose and her plea. For her part, the wise woman thought long and then accepted the trade, receiving from the young questant some fine specimens of scrimshaw, some small heirlooms, and, with hesitation, her widow's ring. In return, the young woman departed in the morning in possession of a set of secret instructions as well as a jar of faerie ointment mixed with seeds, which she was strictly warned to never reveal lest she invite her own ruin upon her head.</p><p>The enlightened widow returned home and, once rested and reunited with her son, set about carving herself a set of gleaming white arms according to the instructions she'd received. Each arm was whittled from a whole whalebone rib and when she was done they were fine and strong. Lastly she applied the ointment and let them sit overnight. By morning they had blossomed all over with crimson flowers and begun to move of their own accord.</p><p>A simple pair of arms on their own are of no godly use, no matter how clever they may be, so espying the problem she affixed them in place at her sides right below her own two arms. With the new arms so attached, she went about her business and the arms soon proved their worth. They were good strong hands that would do any useful task that was set afore them with nary a thought from their owner. She could hold and attend to her boy with one set of arms while her fine new hands of their own accord could hold a knife and turn the bones. The village was naturally leery of the knowledge she had brought back from the wastes, as well as the changes she had wrought for herself, but her new arms put out such wondrous goods of ivory, and in such tireless quantities, that everyone soon accepted the boon that was evident afore them.</p><p>So successful was she, that a charming sailor came courting not long after.</p><p>Alas, no good thing in life comes without its cost and no story is without its strife. The sailor, though pleasing to the eye and to the ear, was a scoundrel and a layabout. He was a man blessed with a good face, who could always say the right things, and for whom, despite his dearth of talents, life had always come easily. The young woman loved him true, more's the pity, and she saw not his faults so they soon were wed. The whole village turned out for the event and it could have been a good marriage, but at some point the charming bridegroom has made his choice, and so once they were alone on their wedding night he turned on her and showed his true colors!</p><p>The scoundrel sailor overpowered her and imprisoned her in a large chest, all so he could take her fine arms for himself. He saw not the woman, clever and fair as she was, but thought only of the fortune that could be gained with the work of her strong arms. Forsooth, once he had them he found that these new arms were easily affixed at his sides below his own two arms, and thus, with the coveted object of his monomania at hand, he laughed at the woman's pleas for her release. He was not normally prone to drink, but so pleased with the ease of his success he took to revelry and the arms obligingly plied him with drink until he fell into a stupor.</p><p>In the morning he found the arms had grown as indolent as he was and try as he might they would do no useful work for him. The young prisoner again begged to be released, and again she was denied. Little did her captor know, but the seeds of her escape had been planted from the start, for she had dutifully kept secret  from all the existence of the ointment, even from him who she had loved. Search as he might he could find no means to control the arms, even though the ointment was kept in plain sight alongside her scrimshanding inks. The sailor, though deft enough at his own trade, and doubly so when it came to the art of getting others to ply it for him, was quite lazy beyond his limited sphere and had never learned the basics of the art nor knew he not what the proper tools were. More the irony there, for his young bride had offered once to show him, but he had begged off since his interest in her was only in what he could take. That night, discouraged, the arms plied him again with drink and he fell once more into a stupor.</p><p>When he awoke on the second day of honeymoon he found that the crimson flowers now had rotted on the bone and clung about the arms as curls of dead black vines. The arms hung at his sides like huge anchors that he could not command to be removed. He dared not show his face in the village for no gilded words could cover over the black evidence of his crime. The mournful jailer demanded once again that the young bride aid him, this time threatening her life and the life of her son. Thinking fast, she pleaded her case and had him swear that he would release her if she gave him the answer he sought. He acceded, and so she told him truthfully that she'd learned her secrets from the wise old hermit woman who lived on the moor and that he could doubtless find aid there from her for his folly. She warned him that the crossing was hard and the price would no doubt be steep, but it was not yet too late to free himself from what he'd done. By nightfall he could be free!</p><p>He knew roughly the way, but the path across the moor was indeed hard and in his heart he faltered. He did not think he could go into the unknown and then come out again, he was not made of such stern stuff. Worse, he had embarked on this reckless venture to gain for himself an easy life. There was no sacrifice he could stomach that would be enough trick the old live hermit that he was repentant for his duplicity. She would never let him keep the arms. He tried to make excuse to his pitiable wife, but his dashing words died on his tongue. Desperate, saying nothing, the cursed sailor abandoned his wife to her plight and hired onto a boat, attempting to flee overseas for remedy. He'd met once a saintly Spaniard who had heard rumor of a certain silver calabash, a draught from which would cure any malady. Perhaps yet he would bewitch these arms into fealty and reap the rewards they owed him.</p><p>Night fell at sea and he abandoned his watch and took to drinking, wrapping himself tightly in his imaginings. The arms at his sides creaked to life once more and poured his cups for him, and when he'd drunk his fill and was stumbling around in his stupor the arms moved no more. All on his own but he fell overside the boat and the weight of the arms dragged him down for they made not one single motion to save him.</p><p>And that could have been the close of things, except that the next morning a very strange incident occurred.</p><p>For you see, in the morning, the arms crawled their way out of the sea with the drowned sailor in tow. He was stiff and awful with his tongue protruding out all purple, like some dire hermit crab scuttling on the beach. The whole village witnessed it and realized what had happened and went and released the young widow from her confinement. The led her to the beach, and with ease she removed the fine strong arms from the corpse's sides and took them once more as her own.</p><p>As to her part, the good craftswoman never did remarry again, though with her efforts and teachings she eventually gained an honored space of respect with those around her and was treasured by her village. Her son grew up into a good man, and so life went on.</p><p>And <em>that</em> was the end of things, almost...</p><p>When the old scrimshander died at the end of her life, she was buried with her fine strong arms. A month after her burial the arms pulled themselves, along with her skeleton, up from the dirt. The arms climbed up a big looming dead tree at town's edge and scrimshawed her bones. From the bone chips grew crimson blossoms that spread out over the tree and skeleton both with a kind of new life. And to this day the arms hold court there among the gentle blossoms, helping out the honest and the overburdened with their extra work. Day and night those decorated bones of sea and earth sit there in their tree, and carve, and mend, and do any useful work that an honest soul might place before them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you enjoyed this for what it was. It's probably the most "general audiences" thing I've ever produced, which is amusing in a way. I wrote this initially in the form of back and forth dialogue as a submission for a video game project, and now the interactive fiction version of it is freely available here: https://grinningaphotic.itch.io/the-scrimshanders-widow</p><p>My submission ultimately wasn't selected to be used but I decided to polish up the story and release it here as a traditional narrative just the same. All elements are wholly original, though it's meant to evoke an 1850's style fairy tale with a loosely Scottish setting. The word "scrimshander" is an outlyer since it has American connotations, but it's so wonderfully specific in its meaning. It was introduced to me by the game Icewind Dale and then reinforced through reading Moby Dick, so those were some of the thought-threads going on in the background. Written mostly under the influence of Russian post-punk.</p><p>I very much enjoyed the phrase, "she affixed them in place at her sides right below her own two arms," because it's the sort of fairy tale description that drives illustrators up the wall trying to figure out the physical mechanics of it. My beta reader joked also that by "wondrous goods carved from bone" I clearly meant she has a special talent for turning out  bone dildos, and then insisted that I include some comment along those lines here, so yeah, go ahead and ponder that I suppose.</p><p>For anyone waiting on my other writing, um, hi, hello, I'm still alive and creating things. I'm not making much progress for the moment, but writing is still near and dear to my heart; the pandemic has not resulted in a bounty of extra free time for me unfortunately. I might do a few smaller original works at the moment, mostly for my own benefit, but I hope to not be idle.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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